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The purpose of Portfolio Management, when applied to Provider investments (especially, IT investments), is a central mechanism to an overall Value Management approach by making investment allocation explicit against strategic choices such as how much to invest in potentially high value, but usually risky initiatives versus safe but low-value activities. The Service Portfolio represents the complete set of services that are managed by the service Provider. It is used to manage the entire lifecycle of all services and is defined by three categories of services. The service pipeline represents service that is under consideration (purposed) or those that are currently in development but are not yet ready for deployment or consumption by the business partners. The next category is the service catalog which represents all live services or services that are available for deployment to the business partners. The final category is retired services. This represents the services that are curr…

Every organization that delivers products or services will need to shift their ideas for how they plan, build, test and deploy a service that is resilient and for one that truly delivers value for both customers and the internal business. Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous deployment are all supported by Continuous testing. Continuous anything will not be assured of success without Continuous Testing. Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. Shifting left ensures that the test takes place early, up front in the pipeline of delivery, NOT after the development. Testing after development is too late because then we do not have the time, money or resources available to re-engineer, re-design or to re-develop appropriately. When we test after the development of an application the best we can do wit…

The purpose of the (IT) Service Provider is to serve the needs of the business. This is carried out by providing services to the business which are then engaged to provide some form of value to both the business and the Service Provider. Often the value delivered is less than optimal because the Service Provider and the business have different perspectives, culture goals, objectives, and incentives. The Business-Provider Alignment Model (BPAM) provides a framework for being able to analyze and understand these differences between the provider and its business partners. By engaging the BPAM we can begin to surface dialog about the relationship between the provider and the business and begin constructive discussions about the partnership that needs to be created. It does this by allowing each party to exam the four key elements of alignment – business environment within which the business operates, strategic context for the business, provider strategy and the provider portfolio of inves…